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Bulgaria Bulgaria is like a step back in time and also a collision of the old ways of life and the modern world. You often see a new BMW overtaking a horse drawn cart. You see people dressed in traditional village clothes (pitch pork in one hand) talking to a young girl with designer jeans. We stayed at a campsite (Sakar Hills www.sakar-hills.com) run by an English couple (Shirley and Martin) that have retired and now live in Bulgaria. Martin used to test drive Land Rovers (and enjoys a game or two of Backgammon) and so was a willing participant in discussing all things Land Rover. We ended up staying a few days, Martin and Shirley took us out for lunch and then to a local winery and we had a big night with their son Mat and two other English guys who are moving to Bulgaria – Bob and Merv. We had to very reluctantly drag ourselves away and get back on the road before we ended up buying some real estate (it is sooooo cheap) and lived there. Mat needed to get internet for the campsite, so he asked the police chief (who has become a family friend) and was put onto a local who is the designated internet expert. “No worries Mat,” he says “I can hook you up to my computer at home”. A week or so goes by and nothing happens so Mat asks his police mate if he knows where the internet guy is. “Power pole number seven along the main road” is the reply. “You will understand when you get there”. Mat gets there and sees the internet guy running cabling from pole to pole. Basically he has strung a line from his house, along the power poles, and each night after work (he is only the computer guy after hours) he runs the cable along a few more power poles. A week or so later, he reaches the campsite, drops a bundle of cable on the front lawn and says, “here is internet”. I think Mat is a bit scared to think about WIFI for a while. Bulgaria is like that. Bulgaria might soon be famous for UFO sightings. We saw an unexplained light travel across the sky, too bright and fast for an aircraft. UFO might be the only answer. Romania Highlights of Romania Driving through beautiful forest and then seeing snow and ice all along mountain passes before having to turn back because snow still blocked the roads. Terrible potholed roads. Narrowly avoiding several head-on crashes because the drivers over here are incredibly impatient. The safest way was to find a large truck that was doing a reasonable speed and tuck in behind him for a few hundred kilometres. Corrupt police to remind us of Africa. Romania was going to be a transit country but it turned out to be a little gem. The landscape is beautiful even if the roads are some of the worst that we have had since leaving Ethiopia. People still get around on horse and cart, which creates numerous traffic hazards in the process. There are many beautiful old buildings built before communism that would make a renovators mouth water. In contrast to the beautiful old buildings are the legacy of communist architecture – decrepit old concrete flats and factories. The communists were obsessed with concrete – it was used for roads, power poles, apartments, factories, in fact everything. As we were leaving Romania the police on the side of the road stopped us. After looking at all our documents and not being able to find fault they fabricated a story about overtaking on a solid line and having to pay a 300 Euro fine and having passports and drivers licence sent to the Australian consulate. We were caught a little off guard having left our defences behind somewhat once we left Africa. They played the classic good cop bad cop routine. The officer who spoke good English took us to the police van to try to “sort out some form of compromise off the record and as a token of friendship”. He used a lot of words to say “on the spot fine”. I kept up the line that he should just let us go on our way. He asked us how much money we had on us (off the record) to which we said it was all on our visa card. Finally Jacinda offered that we might be able to rustle up a few dollars. He hadn’t been prepared for our own good tourist bad tourist routine. “No!” I said as much to him as Jacinda. “We cant do that, corruption is illegal in this country. If we pay him a bribe he will go to prison. We wont pay anything and I think you should just let us on our way.” He walked outside to talk to his boss. I pointed out to him that we had not crossed on the solid line; we had crossed on the broken line. Jacinda then did the whole “I will phone our local friends and ask them” line. Realising he was beaten he gave our passports back and let us go on our way. Jacinda got in the car and I was then cornered by the plain-clothes officer and asked about ARB and all the accessories on the car (He was most interested in ARB Air Lockers, Bullbars and Roof Tent). I am sure that ARB would not like their products to be “the choice of corrupt police the world over”. I wished I had a few ARB stickers to give away in times like this, or maybe some caps or T-shirts. We did the tacky tourist thing and went to see what was supposedly Draculas castle. This claim to fame hinges on Dracula actually existing in the first place, that Vampires are real, that Dracula was a said vampire, and if he was that he actually lived at the castle in question. Needless to say we paid a lot of money to see a really old house. The big-ticket thing for me was the realisation that in the 1300’s people were really short if the height of all the doorframes are anything to go by. Hungary The highlights of Hungary for us amounted to the effortless motorway. We ended up spending only around 24 hours in the country. At the boarder we waited for our passports to get stamped. We overheard the boarder guards telling anyone who came through that we were from Australia and had travelled through Africa as though they had been there with us the whole way. I am sure our passports took so long because the guy was looking at all the stamps. We have noticed people taking photos of the car as we travel along the motorway (the husband speeds past us, looks, then he slows down lets us pass as the wife whips off several shots. The husband then speeds up again to get past us). We are now in the realm of the motor home park (and 24 Euro a night to camp). We are causing somewhat of a stir with our roof top tent and bull bar and spotties. We get a constant stream of people wanting to know about ARB and take photos of the car. Distance Travelled To Date: 36,286 km Average Fuel Consumption: 7.04 km/L In the one-month since leaving Damascus in Syria we have travelled 5,070 km, which works out to be an average of 163km per day Austria We spent a few days in Vienna, one of the prettiest cities that we had seen to date. It has a lot of parks, cycle ways and beautiful old architecture. That’s it really! Can’t say more than that, Europe is becoming a little boring after the adventure of Africa. Germany Germany from the very first day we arrived felt like home for me. Although it lacks the alps of Austria, it is a beautiful country in its own right. First stop was Munich and the famous beer gardens. Munich is a very nice city in its own right, and the locals seem to know how to have a great time. The beer and food is awesome, and everyone must spend some time in the local beer gardens. Next on the agenda was Nuremberg to see Ulle who had travelled with us for a while with her friend Helen in Malawi and Mozambique. Apart from being a very pretty little city, Nuremberg has a fascinating museum that shows the history of the Nazi party and the rallies that made the city famous. Germany seems to have come to grips with its past (including the division between east and west) in an amazing way that allows Germany to move forward as a nation. Ulle showed us a great time and I think her highlight of us coming to see here was being able to sit in the back seat of Truckasaurus again. We then headed up to see Jochen who lives near the small town of Seelwig. Jochen has spent a lot of time in Australia and understands the Australian humour very well. He runs a horse-riding farm in the counhtry side in a beautiful little part of Germany. Many beers and stories were shared in the week that we stayed with him and his family. To see more of him log onto www.realnature.tv Netherlands It can get somewhat confusing. It can be called either The Netherlands, or Holland and the people are Dutch, most of the country is below sea level, the people are super tall, most don’t use curtains on their windows, there seem to be many more bicycles than cars and without doubt the Dutch as a nation speak the best English of all nations in which English is not the first language. For us Holland started out as just catching up with Ilja and Ilvy whom we had met in Kenya several months earlier. It ended up being one of our favourite countries. Along the way we saw Amsterdam, fell in love with Utrecht (the city where Ilja and Ilvy live), became caught up in the Dutch Euro2008 football bandwagon and met some truly amazing people. United Kingdom London was the official end of our trip having covered the classic Cape Town to London overland route. Some eleven months and nearly 39,000km later the adventure was over. Truckasaurus was packed into a shipping container and was on his way home to Australia. It was quite sad that the adventure had come to an official end. The actual beginning of the end was when we left Africa, but putting Truckasaurus on the ship marked the realisation that the journey was officially over. Once home, we can catch up with friends and family, and maybe, just maybe planning for the next adventure might slowly begin… Distances and Costs Note that fuel economy has been severely effected by factors such as head winds, weight carried, mud terrain tyres and reduction in aerodynamic efficiency because of roof rack, roof tent etc. Off road the biggest issue was the excessive weight of the car. That had the greatest bearing on off road fuel economy as the continual stop/start saw Truckasaurus drink more than he should). These factors basically accounted for a 3.5km/L (35%) reduction in highway fuel economy over the unmodified Truckasaurus. Total Distance Travelled: 38,836km Average Fuel Economy: 7.06km/L Average Fuel Price: AUD $1.35/L Best Fuel Economy: 8.56km/L Worst Fuel Economy: 5.36km/L (Highway Economy At 110km/h before modifications 11.1km/L) Cheepest Fuel: AUD $0.15/L Most Expensive Fuel: AUD $2.56/L Total Fuel Used: 5,500L (Note if we had filled up in the UK the cost of fuel would have been AUD $2.73/L) Bribes paid: One Bribes we talked our way out of: Several Mechanical Problems Loose starter motor earth cable 3 spare batteries for fridge 6 Shock absorbers blown 1 Puncture ABS/Traction control sensor fault (Still to be resolved) Front windscreen Rear side window Passenger side mirror Rear diff guard Oil seal - transmission/transfer case Several dents Roof top tent zip |
